memory_alphafandomcom-20200223-history
Exocomp
Exocomps are sentient artificial lifeforms designed by Dr. Farallon. Three exocomps were created by Dr. Farallon in 2370. They were meant to be used on the Particle Fountain Project for maintenance purposes. The exocomp was not intended to be sentient but due to the adaptive nature of its design it evolved. The basis of the exocomp is an industrial servo mechanism which is in common use on Tyrus VIIa for many years. This basic design was extended by Dr. Farallon who named them 'exocomps'. The main design goal was to make the exocomp a problem solver. The exocomp consist of a micro replicator, a boridium power converter and axionic chip network. This axionic network gives the exocomp a formidable computational speed. The micro replicator not only creates tools which the exocomp can use to solve problems but also create new circuit pathways in the exocomps memory when it performs tasks it never has done before. This mechanism gives the exocomp the ability to learn. The more tasks it has to perform the more pathways will form in its memory. Problems can be entered via the command-pad on which the exocomp decides what kind of tool it has to use and replicate. Lieutenant Commander Data was testing an exocomp on the particle fountain and completed fourteen seperate tests when the device was send into a access tunnel to seal a plasma conduit. The exocomp returned without finishing its task and when Dr. Farallon tried to send it back into the access tunnel, by overriding the exocomp commands, her control-pad overloaded. A few seconds later the plasma conduit exploded. If the exocomp had returned into the access tunnel it would have been destroyed. When Data brought the exocomp back to the [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)|USS Enterprise]] for investigation they found that the exocomp had shutdown and that the interface circuitry which connect the exocomp to the control-pad was completely burned out. Further investigation revealed that the number of new circuit pathways had increased by 632 percent. Dr. Farallon explained that sometimes an exocomp starts randomly generating large numbers of new pathways which ultimately would lead to a total shutdown. When this happened the exocomp has become totaly useless and has to be erased and reprogrammed all over again. Data mentioned that the new pathways did not to appear to interfear with the orginal circuitry. This lead Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge to say that somehow the exocomp knew that the conduit would explode and therefore it had to leave the access tunnel. Because this remark would imply some form of self-preservation, Data took it upon him to perfom a level one diagnostics on the exocomp. The level one diagnostics Data performed revealed that the command module was working normally. When checking the exocomps' sensor logs it turned out that the exocomp itself had burned out its own command interface circuitry and then repaired it two hours later. This discovery prompted Data to talk about the definition of life with Doctor Beverly Crusher. In a short briefing it was decided to test whether the exocomp possessed a survival instinct or not. A test was created where an exocomp had to repair a small conduit breach in a jeffries tube in which a plasma cascade failure was simulated by means of a transient overload signal. The exocomp performed the repair and was returned after the plasma overload simulation would have destroyed it. Data performed thirty-four additional tests and all tests had the same outcome. Every single time the exocomp would complete the repairs. Because Doctor Crusher distracted Data from his lastest test the exocomp returned automatically and Data noticed it had a different tool than when it entered the tube. In the previous tests the exocomp was recalled when the simulated plasma overload would have occurred. When Data checked the sensor logs he discovered that the exocomp had deactivated the overload signal. It did not fail the test; it saw right through it. When the situation on the particle fountain went critical the decision was made to reconfigure the exocomps so their powercells would explode when beamed into the particle matter stream but because of their survival instincts the command pathways would have to be disconnected. Data locked out transporter controls preventing the exocomps to be transported because he did not believed that it was justified to sacrifice one lifeform for another. Commander Riker proposed to ask the exocomps if they where willing to perfom this mission, when their command pathways where reconnected they reprogrammed the commands Data had entered and altered the transporter coordinates, inside the station core instead of the matter stream. They solved the problem by distorting the particle stream frequency. Unfortunately one of the exocomps did not survive, it had to stay behind to disrupt the particle stream so the other two could safely be beamed back to the Enterprise. Dr. Farallon will try to find out what the exocomps really are without treating them as simple tools. (TNG: "The Quality of Life") :The exocomp prop was modified for re-use in Star Trek: Enterprise's "Dead Stop" ten years later. Category:Tools de:Exocomp